A seller halted her title application and built a fifth house on land meant for a public road. The Supreme Court upheld specific performance of the villa as sold.
In July 2007 the owner of a plot in Neo Chorio, Paphos, sold a couple one of four houses she had built on it, and undertook to issue a separate title and transfer it to them. She did not. Instead she had her application for separate titles halted and built a fifth house, on the part of the plot that was to be ceded for a public road. On 13 July 2026 the Supreme Court upheld the order for specific performance in the husband's favour.
It set aside the wife's judgment. According to the evidence, she had assigned her rights under the contract to her husband while the case was running, and nobody amended the claim to say so.
What happened
The contract of 2 July 2007 was for a furnished three bedroom villa, No. 4, with a pool and a plot of 613 square metres, shown on plans and architectural drawings attached to it. The buyers paid £235,000, leaving a balance of £30,000 payable when the title was issued. The villa was already finished and was handed over when the contract was signed. The trial court found that the seller was bound to transfer within six months, a finding not challenged on appeal.
Attached to the contract were a plan of the whole development of four houses, marking the private road, the sewage station, a green area and the area to be ceded for a future public road, together with the building permit, the land division permit and their certificates of approval. Clause 9 gave the buyers co-ownership and common use of the common areas, and clause 10 named the private road and the sewerage system as common areas.
When the contract was signed, the seller's application for separate titles was at its final stage. By a letter from her lawyer of 9 April 2008 she asked the Land Registry not to proceed with it. The planning authority had revoked the condition in the planning permit that required part of the plot to be ceded as a public road, and she built a fifth house on that area. The buyers, together with the buyers of another of the four houses, challenged the permits for it, and in 2013 the Supreme Court annulled them, holding that there had been no proper inquiry into the rights of the owners of the other houses.
The buyers' lawyer asked for the transfer by letter of 3 March 2009, and when nothing happened they sued. The trial court ordered specific performance, and the seller appealed.
The contract includes what is attached to it
The court restated that where plans are attached to a contract and the contract refers to them, they form part of it, and the contract is read together with them. It held that the same applies to permits and other related documents, so the permits and certificates attached here were part of the contract.
It then applied its decision of 4 June 2024 in Saul v. Nicos Demetriou Finance and Construction Ltd, where a third floor added to a two storey building was a breach because it reduced the buyers' share in the common areas, even though the sellers had obtained the permits for it.
Where a development is changed, even lawfully and with every permit obtained, it does not necessarily follow that the buyers' contractual rights cannot have been breached.
On the facts, the seller accepted that the planning permit for the fifth house moved the green area, and that the land shown as green area in the permit for the four houses was now part of the fifth house's garden. Her argument that the buyers' co-ownership covered only what was coloured green on the plan failed, because it ignored clause 10 and the detailed plan in the permits, which described the private road and the beach protection zone as common areas. The court upheld the trial court's findings that the permit for the fifth house breached the contract and the buyers' rights.
Specific performance means what was sold
The seller argued that the order could not be carried out, relying on a Land Registry witness who said the return of the road land had created a problem with the building permit and the division. She said the trial court should have used its power under section 7(1) of the Sale of Immovable Property (Specific Performance) Law 81(I)/2011 to order specific performance on terms, so that the permits and plans could be altered.
The court rejected this. The witness was not the person to say whether there was a legal obstacle, and in any event the complication came from the fifth house, which the seller had built of her own choice and for her own interests, not from the return of the land. An order adapted to accommodate the fifth house, with its own share of the common areas, would not have given the buyers what they agreed and bought, but something different.
The wife lost her claim
At the first hearing a Land Registry officer said that in 2015, after the action was filed in 2009, the wife had assigned her rights under the contract to her husband, and that the deed of assignment was on the Land Registry file. The pleadings said nothing about it, and the trial court refused further cross-examination and would not admit the deed.
The Supreme Court held that it should have done both. Whether a claimant has standing to pursue a claim is a matter the court examines of its own motion. Where an assignment is in force, the assignee is the person entitled to claim the assigned rights. The husband was already a claimant and a buyer under the same contract, and all that was needed was an amendment pleading that his wife had assigned her rights to him, so that he could pursue them as assignee under the Civil Procedure Rules that applied to the action. That was never done.
The trial court had referred to the proviso to section 11(4) of Law 81(I)/2011, which concerns security assignments. The Supreme Court held it did not help: the evidence was that the assignment had been made by gift, and it could not be treated as a security assignment. The trial court's real error was to treat any assignment as a matter only between husband and wife. The seller's obligations did remain, but the question was who was entitled to enforce the wife's rights as buyer.
The trial court had noted that the deed was not before it, so that its content and type could not be established, and it had made no finding that there was no assignment. On those facts the wife, who bore the burden, had not proved on the balance of probabilities that no assignment was in force in her husband's favour. Her claim was dismissed. The appeal against the husband was dismissed, and he keeps his order for specific performance.
What this means in practice
For buyers whose seller has changed the project after the sale, the question is what the contract, read with its attachments, promised. A seller who holds new permits has not thereby answered the buyers' claim. The plans and permits attached to your contract are evidence of what you bought, and a contract review before signing is the point at which to confirm that they are attached and that the contract refers to them.
For buyers choosing between remedies, the court's reasoning shows what specific performance can achieve: the title to the property as described in the deposited contract, not a version adjusted to suit later changes. Whether that or damages is the better route depends on the facts, and we set out the comparison on our page on specific performance or damages.
The trap is an assignment made during the proceedings. A buyer who assigns the rights under the contract, even to a spouse who is already a co-claimant, and even by gift, can lose the claim if the pleadings are not amended to match. Anyone assigning purchase rights while a case is pending should have the pleadings brought into line at the same time. Where the delay is in the title itself, our page on title deed problems explains the wider picture.
Questions we are asked
Are the plans and permits attached to my contract of sale part of the contract?
Yes, where the contract refers to them. The Supreme Court restated that plans attached to a contract and referred to in it form part of it, and that the contract is read together with them. It added that the same applies to permits and other related documents attached to it. Here the building permit, the land division permit and their certificates of approval were attached, and the court held they formed part of the contract.
Can a seller change the development if the planning authority approves it?
Approval does not settle the buyer's position. The court held that where a development is changed, even lawfully and with every permit obtained, it does not follow that the rights of buyers under their contracts cannot have been breached. It applied an earlier decision in which a third floor added under valid permits was a breach, because it reduced the buyers' share in the common areas.
What does specific performance give a buyer whose seller has changed the project?
What the buyer agreed to buy, as shown in the contract deposited at the Land Registry. The seller argued that the trial court should have attached terms so that the order could be carried out with the permits and plans altered to accommodate the fifth house. The Supreme Court held that such an order would have given the buyers something different from what they bought, and upheld the orders without those terms.
Who can sue once a buyer has assigned the rights under the contract?
The assignee. The court held that where an assignment is in force, the person entitled to claim the assigned buyer's rights is the assignee, who must be a party. Whether a claimant has standing is a matter the court examines of its own motion, even if no party raised it in the pleadings.
Does the Sale of Immovable Property (Specific Performance) Law protect an assignment made by gift?
Not under the proviso the trial court referred to. Section 11(4) of Law 81(I)/2011, with its proviso, concerns a security assignment, which the Law defines as an assignment made to secure a money obligation. The court held that an assignment between spouses said to have been made by gift was not a security assignment, so the provision did not help.
What happened to the costs?
They were split. The husband kept his judgment, the court left the trial court's costs order as it concerned him untouched, and he was awarded 4,000 euro in appeal costs against the seller. The wife's claim was dismissed, with the costs of the trial between her and the seller and a further 4,000 euro in appeal costs awarded against her.
Sources
- Niki (Nikoulla) Onisiforou Savva v. Andreas Vardas and another, Civil Appeal 69/2017, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 13 July 2026
- The Sale of Immovable Property (Specific Performance) Law of 2011, 81(I)/2011, CyLaw
This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Klitos Platis
Advocate, Partner
Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Published 26 September 2026
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